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Exhibits Highlight AU History, Collections

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AU in the 1970s: A Snapshot

Are you curious about what campus was like in your mother’s or grandmother’s era? Check out the library’s first-floor exhibit of 1970s newspaper articles, photos, and publications from University Archives depicting the student scene. Highlights include: football at AU, student activities from charity fund raisers to political protests, and dramatic moments—including the plane that hit the WAMU radio tower in 1975.

Fifteenth-Century AU?

What’s the oldest book in AU’s library? Find out at the third-floor Special Collections’ exhibit where works of history, mathematics, religion, and rhetoric from 1468 through 1500 are on display. The nature of incunabula books printed before 1501 feature hand-colored initials, wood and leather bindings, and wood cut illustrations.

Both exhibits will be on display through the end of the semester.

New Graphic Novel Collection

What are the most heavily-used books in the library? Graphic novels.

Martin Shapiro, Collection Development Librarian, learned this in summer 2008 when he collected circulation statistics for various subject areas within the library’s general collection.

Armed with that information and resources designated for expanding the collection, library staff added several hundred titles including: novels from classic series, such as Sandman and Sin City; titles by major authors, such as Mike Mignola and Brian-Michael Bendis; and, lesser-known publications, such as Michel Rabagliati’s series.

The strategy behind the graphic novel collection is two-fold:

create a collection that represents a wide-variety of styles that contribute to defining the term graphic novel

provide greater curricular support for the growing number of AU courses that focus on graphic novels

This summer, the collection was moved to the first floor to give well-deserved real estate to these titles.

Erica Bogese, Robert Kelshian, Tony Loffredo, and Susan McElrath contributed to this column.